We celebrated our anniversary on Friday night – February 28th. Technically we don’t have one this year because it isn’t leap year. We still managed to get out for an amazing dinner at our favorite, Cask & Larder: A Southern Public House. Each bite is so good. I know every time I blog about it I feel like you’ve already heard it but if you are in Orlando, you should eat there. We started out with brisket hand pies and a new flavor-sorghum. Sorghum is derived from grasses and has a whole lot of agricultural uses. We ended up having sorghum molasses in two of the dishes last night, as a dipping sauce for the hand pies and as a sauce with Arbol chile on fried brussels sprouts. Wow. Carmelly and deeply flavorful and something else i can’t identify. It was amazing in both preparations, with the bbq (maybe just smoked?) brisket and with the fatty heat of the arbol and fried sprouts. Southern food can be so vast and exciting and complicated when you take a deep look at it. I feel like we haven’t even scratched the surface. Z had a hanger steak with blistered tomatoes and this ridiculously sweet corn pudding. I can’t even imagine how to make that pudding. It was like cornmeal with a crunchy top and pieces of corn and all baked in a small cast iron dish. I had the Nashville Hot Chicken, which is significantly different from the brunch hot chicken I’ve had here before. This was I think a grilled and roasted/basted half a bone in chicken rather than a fried chicken breast that they have for brunch with eggs or waffles. It was spicy with a side of creamy and mustardy Alabama white BBQ sauce and some mellow flavorful macaroni & cheese on the side. I had a fun cocktail that was really nice for cutting through the flavors, a Jealous Monk, which included Anchor junipero gin, green chartreuse, lime juice, celery bitters and champagne vinegar-what?! so good. It was like the freshest limeade you ever had. Z finished off with his version of a cocktail, a malted milkshake. I ate the rich clearly housemade cherry on top. Cheers!
Month: March 2014
Cherry Bomb!
A couple weeks ago I made Brunswick Stew. When I was grocery shopping for the ingredients I ended up all over town and then actually buying everything at the grocery store 3 minutes from my house. Such is life. In my travels across town I stopped in to Whole Foods to find some specific brisket. I didn’t walk out with any brisket but I did walk out with the following…
- Bottled of cold brewed espresso mixed with Almond Milk – totally enjoyed that over multiple days
- Best yogurt I’ve ever tasted – Noosa – Made in Colorado with Australian probiotics (sounds like the hippies won that one)
- Most interesting yogurt I’ve ever tasted (and not interesting bad, Skyr Icelandic yogurt flavored with mango & jalapeno)
- Cherry Bomb Peppers
So, outside of having a million other cooking projects I managed to pickle three pints of cherry bombs. Pickling peppers is probably the easiest canning that I have done. If you like jalapenos and want to try your hand at preserving I would actually really recommend it. It’s about the easiest thing and the super spicy chopped peppers will be great on pizzas and in Italian cold meat sandwiches (like Muffalettas.) This recipe is from Food in Jars website and if you have a mind to start canning it is a great place to start.
My Urban Pantry 